Read Online Lord Peter Wimsey [01] Whose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers - Free Book Online

feet on the linoleum, and two kinds of hair in the hat!"
     
    He lifted the top-hat to the light, and extracted the evidence with tweezers.
     
    "Think of it, Parker–to remember the hairbrush and forget the hat–to remember his fingers all the time, and to make that one careless step on the telltale linoleum. Here they are, you see, black hair and tan hair–black hair in the bowler and the panama, and black and tan in last night's topper. And then, just to make certain that we're on the right track, just one little auburn hair on the pillow, on this pillow, Parker, which isn't quite in the right place. It almost brings tears to my eyes."
     
    "Do you mean to say–" said the detective, slowly.
     
    "I mean to say," said Lord Peter, "that it was not Sir Reuben Levy whom the cook saw last night on the doorstep. I say that it was another man, perhaps a couple of inches shorter, who came here in Levy's clothes and let himself in with Levy's latchkey. Oh, he was a bold, cunning devil, Parker. He had on Levy's boots, and every stitch of Levy's clothing down to the skin. He had rubber gloves on his hands which he never took off, and he did everything he could to make us think that Levy slept here last night. He took his chances, and won. He walked upstairs, he undressed, he even washed and cleaned his teeth, though he didn't use the hairbrush for fear of leaving red hairs in it. He had to guess what Levy did with boots and clothes; one guess was wrong and the other right, as it happened. The bed must look as if it had been slept in, so he gets in, and lies there in his victim's very pyjamas. Then, in the morning sometime, probably in the deadest hour between two and three, he gets up, dresses himself in his own clothes that he has brought with him in a bag, and creeps downstairs. If anybody wakes, he is lost, but he is a bold man, and he takes his chance. He knows that people do not wake as a rule–and they don't wake. He opens the street door which he left on the latch when he came in–he listens for the stray passer-by or the policeman on his beat. He slips out. He pulls the door quietly to with the latchkey. He walks brisky away in rubber-soled shoes–he's the kind of criminal who isn't complete without rubber-soled shoes. In a few minutes he is at Hyde Park Corner. After that–"
     
    He paused, and added:
     
    "He did all that, and unless he had nothing at stake, he had everything at stake. Either Sir Reuben Levy has been spirited away for some silly practical joke, or the man with the auburn hair has the guilt of murder upon his soul."
     
    "Dear me!" ejaculated the detective, "you're very dramatic about it."
     
    Lord Peter passed his hand rather wearily over his hair.
     
    "My true friend," he murmured, in a voice surcharged with emotion, "you recall me to the nursery rhymes of my youth–the sacred duty of flippancy:
     
    'There was an old man of Whitehaven
     
    Who danced a quadrille with a raven,
     
    But they said: It's absurd
     
    To encourage that bird–
     
    So they smashed that old man of Whitehaven.'
     
    That's the correct attitude, Parker. Here's a poor old buffer spirited away–such a joke–and I don't believe he'd hurt a fly himself–that makes it funnier. D'you know, Parker, I don't care frightfully about this case after all."
     
    "Which, this or yours?"
     
    "Both. I say, Parker, shall we go quietly home and have lunch and go to the Coliseum?"
     
    "You can if you like," replied the detective; "but you forget I do this for my bread and butter."
     
    "And I haven't even that excuse," said Lord Peter; "well, what's the next move? What would you do in my case?"
     
    "I'd do some good, hard grind," said Parker. "I'd distrust every bit of work Sugg ever did, and I'd get the family history of every tenant of every flat in Queen Caroline Mansions. I'd examine all their boxrooms and rooftraps, and I would inveigle them into conversations and suddenly bring in the words 'body' and 'pince-nez,' and see if